Storytelling games

We've been playing with story telling. It's a really important part of literacy, even at age 0-5. The very youngest children need to learn how to be creative, critical thinkers, working out what might happen next in a story, or filling in a missing rhyming word, or thinking of an ending or describing a character.

We can read stories together and look at books together, but TELLING a story without a book is a different skill.

So we've been playing with a game called Animals at Home, and with some space and fairy tale storytelling dice.

Animals at Home - the children loved this game. We played it with a small group of 2-3 year olds - it's recommended for ages 3+ but I picked out a small selection of the animals and their homes to keep it simple this time.

The children picked out a card with an animal on it and tried to match it to their home. The illustrations are lovely, and the cards are very think and sturdy, just right for little hands. As we played, we talked about the animals and their homes and what it might be like. This is a great game for children of all ages.

Space Travel Dice - the space travel dice set comes with 9 dice and an instruction sheet explaining the meaning of each of the pictures on the dice. Again, as I was playing this with 2-3 year olds, I picked out 3 dice from the pack to keep it simple.

So every time we rolled the dice we added a bit onto our story. We talked about black holes, alien space dogs, space ships and monster dinosaur aliens. And they all came together in a little story about a black hole, a spaceship, a space dog and a hero rescue with a happy ending.

The story telling dice are recommended for ages 6+, but we kept it really simple and managed to make a lovely story with our 2-3 year olds. Perfect for older children who could play on their own too. And perfect for an alternative literacy activity in school or nursery.